“It was nice to play a creep that has some redeeming qualities,” Jesse Plemons told us Tuesday during a Facebook Live interview about his role in the new action-comedy Game Night. The Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad alumnus plays Gary, a recently divorced cop who’s desperate for an invitation to the weekly competitive gatherings his next-door neighbors (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) have with friends.

You can meet good old Gary in the exclusive clip above as he surprises Max (Bateman) and Annie (McAdams) on their way to the new house of Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), for one of their titular bouts. (It’s probably a good thing Gary is not invited; Brooks’s get-together is later interrupted by armed gunmen who murder someone in the house.)

Instead, Gary is left with four lamb shanks and no company, save for the fluffy white dog seemingly attached to his arm. “He’s very lonely; that’s the core of it all,” Plemons laughed. “His best friend is a dog.”

Speaking of that dog (real name: Olivia), Plemons said he held the dog “enough that my arm was sore the next day.” And the face-lick you see in the clip was completely unscripted. “She improvised,” he said. “She went for it.”

According to Plemons, you’ll soon see Olivia in a film opposite Oscar winner Viola Davis. Clearly, this pup is on the way up.